


Tangled Up

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Foursome - M/M/M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:19:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6326941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We’re all like Atsushi’s hair.”</p><p>(Daiki attempts to be profound again.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangled Up

Atsushi gets back on Friday night but he sleeps through Sunday (jet lag can only excuse so much) and it’s only Sunday when things start to feel half-adjusted to where they ought to be. It’s not as if they spend most of the year all together, anyway; he’s gone or Tatsuya’s gone or Atsushi and Taiga are both gone or they’re all gone, but in the summers things stretch out and the three of them don’t have games and Tatsuya’s work is a little less stressful and keeps him closer to home. But then Atsushi’s off visiting his family for two weeks and they’re thrown off-kilter, moons orbiting the same planet that just up and disappears one day.

It hadn’t been all bad; Daiki’s glad to be able to monopolize Tatsuya and Taiga when he can (and he knows he can hold it over Atsushi’s head at some point, although he’s not inclined to at the moment) and it had been nice to do things together that Atsushi doesn’t enjoy that they don’t really do when he’s around. But, Daiki has decided, two weeks is too long.

Atsushi hasn’t said he’d missed them, but Daiki knows he did all the same; he doesn’t say it in words (and might claim the opposite if any of them asked) but he says it with gestures, the way he moves toward them, grasps at them—on the bed, when he’s supposedly sleeping, or when they’re making breakfast or standing around in a pre-caffeinated stupor, or now, on the couch when he’s draped across them all—and the way he smiles, faint and perhaps closer to a grimace than that if you didn’t know him. And he’s bringing them back into being a unit, something closer than what they’d been last Sunday even though they’d been sitting on the same couch together in roughly the same positions.

Tatsuya clicks the pen against his teeth again, staring at his crossword. “What’s a six-letter word for ‘more malicious’?”

It’s nominally a question for all of them but really one for Atsushi, who would probably be better at crosswords than Tatsuya if he had the patience to sit through one. (Daiki and Taiga have no patience, skill, or interest between them.) And that, too, is different today, the non-rhetorical question drifting away from Tatsuya’s mouth and not followed by a sigh or an obviously-wrong answer from Taiga (he tries too hard in Atsushi’s absence). Daiki shifts his arm, pushing against Tatsuya so that his waist falls into the crook of Daiki’s elbow better.

“You have a suggestion?”

“Nope.”

“Stop moving,” says Atsushi, not bothering to turn his head.

His head is resting in Tatsuya’s lap; his face is turned away from Daiki but Daiki would bet his eyes are still closed.

“Meaner,” says Atsushi.

Daiki tries not to shift either Tatsuya or Atsushi, but it’s kind of hard to move his arms and not have it affect them. It’s especially hard when Taiga leans back, head already resting on Tatsuya’s shoulders but now setting its weight against Daiki’s chest. Atsushi’s arms are draped over Taiga’s chest, one hand grasping Taiga’s—and in Atsushi’s it looks almost like a doll’s. They can be very cute when they’re not fighting like yappy dogs, the two of them. And Taiga’s probably the best one out of all of them at spoiling Atsushi, giving him the things he wants—homemade pastries or the right kind of talk or just being with him in that quiet way. It’s not something they just picked up on a road trip or anything like that; it’s something that would have happened anyway between them. It’s the way Taiga is used to being physically alone and Atsushi physically together, not just with them but with his family, all of his siblings and his parents. Atsushi’s always this kind of cohesive, even at his most stubborn and argumentative. He knows how to be in a tangle; he creates this kind of tangle.

It’s like his hair, knotted and full of split ends because he hasn’t cut it since the end of the season and the heat makes it grow like mad and he’s been too lazy to comb it all day and they’re all spoiling him right now so they don’t tell him to. They’re all like that, the four of them. Daiki leans his head forward, brushing his nose against Tatsuya’s neck.

“You’re thinking something profound again, aren’t you?” says Tatsuya.

“Yeah. We’re all like Atsushi’s hair.”

The scratch of Tatsuya’s pen against his newspaper halts; Taiga lifts his head and raises himself semi-upright, twisting to look at Daiki.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Tatsuya’s shoulders begin to shake, and he’s doing a really shitty job at hiding his laughter.

“What?” says Daiki. “I’m being romantic.”

“It would be really romantic if you would let me get back to sleep,” says Atsushi.

He turns his head this time and cracks an eye open to look at Daiki. Daiki looks back at him.

“Stupid,” says Atsushi.

But his voice is softer than well-worn cotton, and Daiki knows he gets it.

“Yeah,” says Taiga—and he doesn’t get it, but Daiki would be more alarmed if he did.

Tatsuya’s shoulders are still; Daiki would like to think he’d laughed because he’d gotten it, but with these things (and a few others) Tatsuya’s still kind of an enigma. But that leaves room for interpretation and, well, Daiki’s not a hopeless optimist but he’ll say Tatsuya got it anyway, because nothing’s definitively telling him otherwise.

Tatsuya’s set the crossword aside; Daiki finds his bare fingers and entwines his own in them. There’s a sport on his neck, where the chain around it has slipped; he has tan lines around it and the thin pale line runs like a groove in his skin. The necklace itself is just askew enough that Tatsuya probably notices, but not worth shifting again and bothering Atsushi. He squeezes Tatsuya’s hand, and Tatsuya squeezes his in return. Taiga leans his head back again. The only sounds are the hum of the air conditioner and the asynchronicity of their breathing, but between all of them it’s more than enough.


End file.
